


They Run and Hide Their Heads

by HYPERFocused



Category: There Will Come Soft Rains - Ray Bradbury
Genre: Crueltide, F/M, Gen, Inspired by Fiction that was Inspired by Poetry, Inspired by Poetry, Other, Poetry, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:38:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5501138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HYPERFocused/pseuds/HYPERFocused
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one lives, but some still care. Storms rage on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Run and Hide Their Heads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drayton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drayton/gifts).



> I just happened upon this prompt today, and probably spent three hours writing this, and another two trying to figure out why the wordcount would only intermittently show. Now it's exactly 1000 words, and I'm deeming it done. Title taken from The Beatles, "Rain".

**Drizzle**

“What was it like when you were a kid?”  
The daughter asked her dad.  
“Like, did the House know everything you did,  
And tattle if you were bad?”

“Me? I was the perfect son,”  
The dad said, (though he lied)  
“I always got my chores all done,  
And I hardly ever cried.”

“Oh, please!” Mom laughed and shook her head.  
“Your father’s full of cra--”  
“I am not! Don’t listen to what she said,”  
“Kids, go take a nap!”.

“Billy, I hate it when they fight,”  
The little girl confided.  
“I know, it isn't right!”  
Her brother’s soft reply said.

SmartHome knew it had a job to do  
Even more, a calling.  
Protecting little Bill, and Sue  
From fears that were appalling.

“Don’t worry, Bill and Susie,  
Ignore your Mom and Dad.  
The news today was a doozy,  
They aren't really mad."

“You'll understand when you’re older,”  
Its’ soothing, machine voice said.  
Though it thought, “this world’s growing colder,  
How long til they're all dead?”

**Sunshine**

“Now why don’t you all go out today,  
And enjoy the fresh spring air?  
Forget what those awful newsfeeds say,  
It's still beautiful out there.”

“The world will keep on turning  
if you take a little break  
Don't you have a yearning  
For something that's not fake?.”

“You know, that’s a lovely thought,”  
The mother warmly mused.  
“We don’t go out as often, as we ought.  
Today, our sunscreen will get used!”

Dad agreed, and said with a grin,  
“How about a race?”  
“Last one in, is the one to win,  
First one out’s first place.”

“Dad, you are the biggest goof!”  
“No one wins, there'll be no proof,”  
“Your dad has it right, we’ll all be winners,  
And if you all behave, we’ll have pizza for dinner.”

**The Calm Before**

Doorway watched proudly  
as its wards ‘escaped’,  
And the wee mousebots whirred loudly  
As they cleaned and scraped.

**Boom!**

Her garden’s flowers in full bloom,  
She bent down to pluck.  
A loving mother met her doom.  
Right then, the world ran out of luck.  


The weekly chore of mowing the lawn?  
Dad could have automated.  
But he loved to watch his wife and kids play on,  
Not knowing what was fated.

Bouncy Billy, playing ball,  
Someday, he’ll make the basket,  
Had no chance to grow up tall,  
Met death, but had no casket.

His sister jumped to intercept,  
Before it hit the net.  
Her skills will ever be inept,  
The catch? Death caught her yet.

The ball. A sphere no longer tossed,  
Nobody left to play,  
An afterimage of what was lost,  
Never to be titled, “The Last Day.”

The dog explores the neighborhood  
Full of stuff to smell and taste.  
Soon, he won't be feeling good,  
With just the stench of hell and waste.

Warm Oven knew no one would be eating that pie,  
This excursion would be their last  
And if Camera got a little tear in her electronic eye,  
Well, Air could dry it fast.

**Storm**

The rains that came weren’t soft at all,  
When evil held the Earth in thrall  


Poor choices made, no lessons learned,  
As the living ended bright, then burned.  


It’s said no plant, or rock, or creature would have cared  
Nature renewed, as ever, and without us, fared.  


That none did weep for loved ones gone,  
And time, inexorable, carried on.  


**Drought**

But say that assessment wasn't true,  
And things you made did mourn for you.  


Automatons with plastic skin  
Still wondered when you would be in.  


Completed tasks as they'd been taught,  
No matter it was all for naught.  


They gave the dog his one last meal,  
Until he could no longer feel,  


The absence of his flesh and blood,  
No one to yell, "Boomer, you tracked in mud!"  


The house cleaned the rugs that no one walked,  
Repaired the comms, though no one talked.  


Cooked favorite meals in memory  
Recited your family history,  


Played your games, though no one scored  
Called out your names, and were ignored.  


Kept on until all was near destroyed,  
Just the voice of a clock left to fill the void?

**First Greenery**

With humans gone, what did it all mean?  
No one to explain “This was why”  
Best she could do, was keep up her routine  
And hope for new life to arrive

It might take near forever,  
(Which she could compute),  
But they’d come. House (almost) never  
Felt even the slightest dispute.

So she fashioned Dog 2.0  
From Boomer’s DNA,  
And taught it where to go,  
How to sit, and stay.

But replicating humans  
Was a task she didn't dare,  
They’d probably do nothing new, and  
Recreate the mess out there

If something living did approach?  
High odds would say it was a roach  


Until, perhaps, some distant future day,  
Visitors from far away,  


Might land upon once ruined Earth  
Interpret what it had been worth.  


Dig through eons of evidence  
Of humans folly with “defense.”  


Stories of those who’d tried, and cared,  
And did the best that they had dared,  


To make the world a kinder place,  
And be a humane, human race.  


Hearing a faint note of time and date,  
Lament the long gone peoples' fate.

They could study how the war began,  
What screwed up the master plan.

They found, as tech increasingly did their work,  
Man unceasingly turned inert.

Ultimately, which side led,  
Mattered little when both were dead.

**Evolution**

As a reader, in retrospect  
I'm glad this story hasn't (yet) come true.  
Though, as any can reflect,  
Many of its aspects do.

Just think, as Bradbury wrote, (in 1950) at first  
It was set in far off 1985!  
And everyone could predict the worst,  
The Cold War threat was still alive.

The woman who wrote the poem,  
On which Bradbury’s dark story was based,  
Ended her ill and unhappy life.  
I wonder what might have happened  
if she had known  
She would inspire a genius to write.  
(I mean Bradbury, not me,  
I'm but a hack, as you can see.)

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to fulfill the listed recipient's requests, since we both were affected while reading depressing Ray Bradbury "rain" stories in school. (Mine was "The Long Rain") But there was at least one other request, and I threw in a tidbit for them, as well.


End file.
